Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

This week, it’s Sledge vs Slag!

Episode 1.14 “State of Sledge”

(Dir by Daniel Attias, originally aired on January 10th, 1987)

When Inspector Perkins (Tom Henschel) of Internal Affairs visits the precinct, Captain Trunk is careful to send Sledge Hammer out on assignment and to also hide his personnel file.  Unfortunately, just after Perkins has announced Trunk’s precinct to be the cleanest in the city, Hammer shows up with Slag (Mark Blankfield), a tattooed cult leader who he has just arrested.  Perkins insists that Slag be given his one phone call.  Slag promptly calls his followers and tells them to lay siege to the station house.

This episode plays out as a parody/homage of Assault on Precinct 13, with the undermanned station surrounded by Slag’s followers and Sledge continually being ordered to keep his cool by Perkins.  It’s amusing, even if it’s not quite as a good as some of the other episodes of Sledge Hammer that I’ve seen.  I will say that there was something gratifying about watching Sledge refuse to take orders from a bureaucrat.  Sledge may be a parody of the Dirty Harry-style cops who were popular in the 80s but, on the show, his critics often feel like a parody of the typical liberal do-gooder.  One gets the feeling that Sledge Hammer is a lot more popular with fans of Dirty Harry than fans of Howard Zinn.